Newcastle, situated 162 km (101 mi) NNE of Sydney, at the mouth of the Hunter River, is famous for its coal and is presently the largest coal exporting harbour in the world,
exporting over 140 Mt of coal per year. To move such large amounts of coal requires many large carrier ships.

Tantrum Theatre, in association with the Australian Theatre for Young People, recently staged "Grounded", a commissioned piece set against the backdrop of the grounding of the massive bulk carrier Pasha Bulker on the sands of one of Newcastle's most popular inner-city beaches. Playwright Alana Valentine was commissioned to create this new work, which celebrates Newcastle’s identity and the significance of the working harbour to Newcastle’s culture.

Lighting designer Lyndon Buckley has been a user of LSC Lighting’s Clarity software control for four years now and naturally chose to use it for this production.

“I’m very comfortable with Clarity and it was particularly ideal for this production,” he said. “I purchased Arkaos Media Master Pro to use alongside Clarity as it integrates seamlessly.”

Lyndon also used Clarity to trigger audio cues explaining that the production had a composer who created a fantastic soundscape that followed the show. Hence it was easy to embed a lot of the audio cues into the lx cues in fact some lx cues did nothing but play audio.

“With Clarity it was really easy to incorporate lighting, projection and audio into the one control solution,” confirmed Lyndon. “This was perfect for me as I was the only operator touring with the show.”

The show played a two-week season at The Civic Playhouse, Newcastle before transferring to Studio 1, at the Australian Theatre for Young People in Sydney a week later for a shorter season.

For the scene of the Pasha Bulker actually grounding, a storm was created on stage using projection, lighting and sound effects for which Lyndon used the advanced timing capabilities of Clarity.

“Clarity has a really good way of editing timing within cues,” commented Lyndon. “With the tight schedule we had, Clarity was the quickest to make changes or adjust. In fact I’ve just done another show with Clarity where the schedule was so tight I actually plotted during the dress rehearsal!”

Lyndon also notes that the level of support he gets from LSC Lighting is fantastic. “I’ve always be able to get quick support from LSC and their forums are a great resource for people needing to ask questions about Clarity. Richie almost always has an answer to any questions I may have!”

Touring equipment, transport and support was supplied by Silhouette Sound Studios, Newcastle and consumables were supplied by Clearlight Shows, Melbourne.